This proposal represents continuationof a project designed to study processes of comprehension of natural language. The present phase is principally directed towards examination of two hypotheses: (1) that surface sentences are principally determined by limitations in human information processing, particularly memory, and (2) that sytlistic variations in language, both semantic and syntactic, serve the primary psychological function of providing commentary on the base propositions which are combined and interrelated in order to form surface sentences. Such commentary is achieved via implicitly understood linguistic devices, such as marking, which serve to indicate affective reactions. Experiments underway are designed to determine the particular kind of limitations in information processing imposed on sentences. In particular, the hypothesis that such limitation is temporal rather than item-related is under investigation.